Predator
by Fork-Tongued-Nemesis
Summary: A chance encounter between a young woman and some of the fiercest warriors in the galaxy brings a moment of terror and later, understanding.


_Okay guys, so I've been losing my muse for Forbidden Love but I'm soldiering though slowly. Writers block isn't pleasant in the least and so this was born. I needed to exercise my writing, keep me thinking about plots, characters, grammar etc etc and I believe you have this little one shot to thank for my having done 367 words in Forbidden Love, which isn't much but it's a start, whoo whoo! Point of the matter is, I haven't left you; I'll be posting another chapter before Christmas. I need to deliver! Pressure me guys! Tell me what you wanna see; action/adventure, suspense, drama, romance? I'm not saying to swear at me and scream and shout, just send me a couple of messages if you want to. I will be asking for ideas and putting them into chapters when and if they join with the current plot. Have fun guys!_

_Disclaimer: You know I don't own Predator/Alien, those franchise are precious to me and I would never steal them. I'm just playing with their creatures of space._

_Predator_

There was a chorus of birds, some screeching and cawing above her head amongst the canopy of trees. At first these sounds were muffled by her rousing state, a sense of blurriness within her mind as she came to. Her eyes twitched before opening a sliver, and then fluttering to rid herself of the sleepy haze. She let out a strangled breath as she pushed herself up with her elbows in order to sit herself up. She hissed and reached one hand up to her forehead to hold it gently. Her eyes clenched shut at the sheer force of the headache which seemed to try and split her head in half.

She took in a few deep breaths, her eyes still closed but in a relaxed manner that time, and then opened them again. She let her hand fall down into her lap and noticed the copious amount of mud that was stuck to her skin. She frowned in confusion before looking down to the cold, damp ground that she was sat in. She inwardly grimaced at the mere thought of her lying in it just moments before; she hated being dirty.

She looked up from her hand and to the surrounding foliage, much like that of her countries ferns, trees and brambles littered the forest floor. Thank God, she was still in the forest, but why did she have a feeling that she was lost? Knowing her luck, she was.

She continued to look about herself, wondering for a moment on how she ended up knocked out in the first place. She vaguely remembered walking through the forestry, finding a path that she'd never been on before and then taking it, and then she was watching a bird in a tree when all of a sudden; BAM, she was hit in the head by something of other. She lifted her eyes to the canopy of trees once more and bit the inside of her cheek in thought, well that would explain why she had a headache.

She paused at the sound of branch snapping, and a cold sweat formed on her brow. To say she was scared was an understatement; she was terrified of the forest for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that she didn't recognise it, and she'd seen a lot of forests in her eighteen years of living. Even as a kid, she was up the mountains with her friends; exploring and finding lovely spots for camping trips in the future. Heck, when she'd reached twelve, she was out and about by herself, and could identify almost every plant she came across. She was always one with nature, and the fact that this new world, and a rather warm one, but maybe that was just her, was a scary thought in itself.

She looked around herself, and quickly made her body get into a crouch with much effort. Her limbs ached with protest as she crouched with one knee planted on the forests floor, dirtying her blue wash jeans with muddy patches. Her hands were planted firmly on her legs, holding with an iron like grip as she looked around for any signs of what could have caused the twig to give an audible snap.

She slowed her heart rate back down, her Martial arts training kicking in. She thanked the heavens that she was trained in some form of self defence, and although she had only done her training for three months, she was almost certain that she could help herself in the situation of being attacked if need be.

She slowly rose and scanned the foliage around her, her eyes seeking some form of movement. Her eyes strained at the everlasting greens that crowded her vision, and with no indication of someone, or something being there to see her was a scary thought.

Maybe they'd left? She told herself, obviously trying to calm herself of any thoughts of dying. But then, she had to wonder; why was she alone? Was this some sort of training set up by her Sensei? Yeah, that must be it. He must be trying to test her for when she's under pressure.

She bit her bottom lip in anticipation. Of course her Sensei would do that, but would he do it to her? She wasn't that advanced yet, and he'd done things much similar to the Elites of his classes. It couldn't be a test for her, so what was it?

She moved slowly, doing a complete three-sixty in order to survey her surroundings.

She felt her lips move to form some words, but closed it quickly before she could. There was something, a blur, like something you'd see from heat, a heat wave? No, it was something else. Its movements were limited, but she could see it, and to her horror, she saw two lights flash with yellow and she backed up a little, and as she did this, she felt her blood run cold

Her heart rate accelerated once again at the obvious camouflaged thing that was stalking her. She felt her eyes widen as she saw it move, slowly, just like that of a predator, leaves crunched beneath the sheer weight of whatever it was.

She heard a deafening _shing_, and looked to the two protruding blades that came from the thing approaching. She backed away some more, not wanting to provoke it too much. She inevitably bumped into something solid, her back hitting it and a dulled metallic clang was heard.

She stiffened at the feel of it, knowing that it wasn't a tree. She reached her hand back, wondering if she'd managed to walk into some metal power box and found flesh with some sort of metallic mesh on the top. She traced the mesh and felt the tell tale signs of a diamond.

She felt something brush her shirt covered hip and made a sound in the back of her throat, something akin to a whine and turned her head slightly. Her hair that lay upon her shoulders in an askew manner was long and covered most of her vision, but she didn't particularly need to see too much, just the reptilian skin on a highly muscled arm was enough to give her a fright.

She spun herself quickly, moving away from the creature and ducked when the other took a swing at her with a resounding 'eep' and quickly ran into the forestry. Her legs pumped as fast as they could, her muscles aching, but it was dulled due to the adrenaline that forced its way down her legs and made a mad leap over a highly positioned fallen tree. She continued her mad dash for as long as she could until she finally came to a halt thanks to something that stood high and mighty in front of her, stock still and uncloaked it seemed.

It was huge, standing at about 7 and a half feet and with arms and legs that were well defined and sat underneath reptilian styled skin, much like that of a snake. A mask of large proportions sat upon his face and showed off some jaws which had razor sharp teeth underneath the mask and overlapped some of the bottom of it; it was hiding what could be the eyes of her killer. Diamond detailing which was black on the skin of yellow, small and some rather big went up his and under his dreadlocks, and then lined down his arms and trailed down into the arm braces which were on his forearms. Armour which covered only half of his chest revealed a yellow tinted peck amongst a mass of mesh in a diamond shape on his skin; the same yellowy tinted skin was lined with diamonds that fell down muscular thighs from under the loin cloth which was made up of a smooth looking fur that she didn't recognise, something she recognised to look a bit like leather from a jersey cow, armour on his lower legs overlapped to create some sort of protection for itself, himself.

She looked up to the eyes of the mask and watched as the eyes glinted yellow, she realised then that this was most likely one of the ones that was stalking her earlier and she felt herself start to breathe rapidly, her chest almost heaving in panic. She never expected something like this to happen to her, not in all of her life. She's always been good, did her chores when she was needed to, sure she threw tantrums, but that was normal for a kid of her age, and she'd calmed down ever since she'd hit seventeen. She'd never hurt anyone, not unless they'd attacked her first of course, and had never actually been one to kill any living creature, and that included the animals of her country.

She heard leaves crunch behind her and took in a deep breath, not knowing what to do in her situation. Should she run again? What was the use, these things were obviously faster than her, and they looked much stronger too. An unfair fight was what she was calling it, and she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop them from killing her off.

She watched as something on his shoulder moved and watched it from her position, her pulse jumping with the recognition of it being a gun. She felt more than saw the three red dots sit on her forehead, the beams a little warm on her skin and waited for him to shoot her. She had nothing better to do then, nothing to help herself, no way of defending herself.

She heard something that sounded like a chuckle behind her and almost turned around to see who or what it was, but steeled herself and stayed still. She wasn't ready for the roar which shook the ground beneath her and a blast of blue energy to come close to hitting her captor and was surprised at the gigantic leap that he did in order to avoid the attack.

She sunk to the ground and covered her head to try and use her arms as some form of protection, which she knew was probably futile but what other choice did she have?

She heard another energy blast hit the ground, somewhere in front of her, and a resounding roar was what had set her off. She jumped up and quickly run into the forestry, trying to find her way back to the path that she'd found to find such a place, and of course, she got herself more lost. She just kept running, hoping to escape from the obvious fight that was occurring behind her, as far away as she could get would be nice, and then she'd stop and think about what and who they were, and also why they were in _her_ forest. She vowed to herself not to visit that place again.

When she was sure that she'd cleared enough ground to allow herself to rest for a moment, she leaned up against a tree and bent herself at her middle to take in deep breaths. She then lifted her head in order to look about herself, the surrounding forest looked familiar to her thank God, and she looked back behind her, wondering just who was trying to kill her off and why.

She was too curious for her own good it seemed as she went to turn back around and head back, but was stopped by something in the tree she was leaning against making leaves fall down and some green stuff dripped to the ground to form a sort of puddle in front of her. She felt stupid, but she looked up slowly, her eyes tracing the bark of the tree which was scarred and marked with her own name and her friends and up until she saw one of those things that was back there, up in the tree and watching her, uncloaked.

"Oh my God..." She mumbled to herself as she slowly moved away from the tree in order to get away from the thing, her first reaction was to run away, but she knew that if she did that it would just chase her, therefore it was inevitable.

She watched as it jumped down from the tree and stared, even though she knew it was rude.

It stood at about 7 feet; it had a mask similar to the other, but was much cleaner apart from one scar that sat atop the forehead, its skin was very similar but had dark spots rather than diamonds that sifted underneath the heavy looking shoulder pads which the other did not have, the same arm braces graced his forearms and held some device which she could clearly see from its standing position, a large metallic pack was sat on its back and sat underneath its long, black dreadlocks, metallic bronze rings sat on each dreadlock and made it look rather pleasing rather than ugly unlike the other one, this one also didn't have a nasty pair of jaws that sat underneath the mask. A metallic body of armour sat on its chest and moved down its left side to reveal mesh covered skin that was bleeding on its side a little, the armour didn't cover the six pack which the creature adorned from obvious labour, its thighs were armoured to the point of only just above its knees were available for eyes to see, the loincloth was covered in some overlapping armours which fell down in front of his crotch, on both sides and probably behind as well, acting as some sort of metallic skirt, its long legs from the knees down were covered in plates of armour and had feet that were bare, and huge. She also took in the skulls that were tied around his waist on some string, nothing the human skulls and some others which she didn't recognise.

She looked back up to its masked eyes and then looked back at the wound in its side. She watched the gun that was on his shoulder carefully, hoping to God that it wouldn't point it at her as the other had before. She watched as it drooped down, obviously out of commission for the moment, which she was grateful for.

What did it chase her for if not to kill her? What was its aim? Why was she calling it an it when she was quite sure that it was a he? She felt so stupid, idiotic and all around helpless as she watched the being tower, even at such a distance, above her.

She watched as his head turned, swishing his dreadlocks as he went and was instantly mystified at the being before her. Maybe this was a friendly? Pfft, knowing her luck, he wanted something; maybe her skull? The thought chilled her to the bone, but she felt no remorse as she slowly stepped towards him.

His head quickly shifted back to her, contemplating what she was up to. Human females were so unpredictable with their numerous mood swings and annoyingly weak physiques, but even still he found her fascinating. Was she approaching him? Yes, she seemed rather confident in doing so too. He watched her still, making sure that she wouldn't pull a trick. Maybe she was hiding some sort of weapon, no; he would have seen that already. He watched until she was just five feet away from him, and when she extended a hand, he clicked his mandibles at her in amusement. She was doing it so cautiously, as if he'd tear her apart without a second thought, which he could, but he wouldn't. She was female, and unarmed, that would be against all that he believed in, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't restrain her if she got too close.

He noticed that she was going to touch his wound and quickly grabbed her tiny wrist in his hand, and heard her suck in a breath. He watched her eyes, looking for any sign of fear, which was there, but barely. Maybe she'd gotten braver, felt calmer in his presence since he wasn't like the Bad Bloods that attacked her a few minutes ago. He watched as the corners of her mouth moved upwards and tilted his head in contemplation at her actions. He felt her grip the brace on his arm with her own hand and looked to her hand which was shaking his arm slightly.

She bowed her head and hunched her body slightly.

"Thank you." She said simply before letting go of his arm and backing away from him.

She was familiar with these aliens, she knew them as Yautja, but those things back there, the ones that attacked her, were strange. They were nothing like the Yaujta that she'd seen before; this one must be here for the hunt which was confusing in itself, since this wasn't sacred ground. Of course, humans of many centuries had been taught about these creatures, but she'd never actually thought she'd see one before, and she was now aware of just who these guys were which was a big help.

He watched her with curiosity, of course he knew that humans were taught about them nowadays in schools, but their knowledge was quite limited in itself. It seemed that this one was rather in tune with the customs of the Yaujta, and what they were there for, even though she'd gotten it slightly mixed up with her own culture, he understood enough to know that when a human met your eyes, that they were only trying to read you, which was impossible due to his mask anyway. The real test was when he was to take off his mask, and then he would see if she was truly okay with him being there.

He lifted his hand and unhooked his mask, making it give off air compression sounds, and then lifted it from his face. He then watched for the human's reaction to the features of his kind.

She was shocked, she thought that Yaujta only showed their face if they were about to kill their victim or if they were to show a sign of respect, none of them could be true since she didn't do anything.

His face crab like, two mandibles graced the bottom lip and another set on the top, she could just about make out the top fangs and the bottom row of teeth behind the closed mandibles. His skin was yellow tinted, much like his body, but his body was slightly darker, a line sat in the middle of the crown and went all the way back, stretching between many black spots on his head, some small, some big, he had some spikes protruding from the sides of his skulls top which had black all over them. She watched as his mandibles flared and noticed the subtle pink of the sensitive skin there. His eyes were small and yellow with a hint of brown, and sat in a deep set of black around his eyes and spots which moved up and along his head towards the spikes.

She gulped as she realised that she'd been staring again, and maybe that was why he was flaring, which was a sign of threat. She heard something akin to a chuckle from him, and he clicked at her animatedly. She looked up at him and noticed that he was watching her with a curious tilted head, amusement evident in his eyes and watched as he shook his head at her, his mandibles flaring to let out a sort of mimicry.

"Name." He said quite clearly, even if it came out with a few clicks.

She blinked up at him, quite surprised at how good he was at speaking.

"Louise." She answered simply.

"Lou'eesa." He tried it himself and saw her laugh gently.

"No, Louise." She said with amusement clearly in her voice.

He gave a nod and tried again; "Lou'ees."

She smiled and shook her head, realising that it doesn't really matter anyway.

He gave a nod to himself in satisfaction when she said nothing more to him and pointed to himself.

"Yeyinde." He told her his own name in hopes that she would call him by it.

"Yeyinde?" she asked curiously. "Does that mean anything?" she asked.

"Brave one." He answered with his head held high and his chest puffing out slightly in pride.

He was very proud to have gotten that name from his old Master; Bakkub. He was named after another noble warrior who was very well known on his planet for being one of the most successful Yautja, with hunts and his fighting skills, even though his sire was of an idiotic Yautja who was actually killed on the first hunt. Of course he wasn't born with that name, but as they aged, they grew up with all sorts of names until they reached a certain age, and of course, he'd passed his first hunt with much success. Bringing back many trophies of Oomans, Kainde Amedha and that also included the skull of the Queen.

She smiled at his attitude; it was rather refreshing to meet someone who was comfortable in their skin, even if they were an alien from some other planet.

She looked up at the sky and blinked in surprise as she felt some rain fall down and hit her nose, bouncing off in many droplets again to fall to the floor. She knew from experience that the forest was boggy when wet and she didn't particularly fancy staying out in the wet and cold. She looked back to Yeyinde and watched as his body flashed a brilliant blue. Was he okay to stay out in the rain with all that gear on? She had no clue, but she wasn't about to abandon him either way.

"Um, I know this might sound silly, but are you okay to stay out here in all that?" she asked with pure curiosity.

Yeyinde was scanning the skies before lowering his head back to her, his job was done. He was supposed to kill off the Bad Bloods, which was an easy job in itself considering that they were all dead. He understood what she was saying and wondered why she was concerned, he was nothing special to her, and she him, but he had to admit that he felt as if he needed to protect her.

He put his mask to his face and put it on before looking back to her and reading her heat signature, of course, she was cold. He shook his head at her and nodded his head into the forest, before walking in that same direction himself.

Louise blinked at him, was that an invitation to follow him, but she was about to go home, but leaving would be rude, especially when he'd offered her to go, and she didn't want to offend him. With that thought, she quickly followed his trail into the forest and then moved to walk beside him.

(-)

In all honesty, he hadn't expected her to follow him, but he was pleased that she understood him. He was overly curious, maybe too much, but he didn't particularly care at this point. He wanted to study her, habits, teachings and everything else that she did and what not. He was certain that if his Master were to see him like this, then he'd be smacked upside the head, and he would probably deserve it too. Bah, who gave a damn at this point, he was old enough to make his decisions, maybe he could learn a thing or two about humans anyway, he was sort of in tune with their language, but he wasn't quite sure about a few things that they say; for example _fuck _is a swear word, but it's relevant to that of sex which is supposed to be used as an insult; _fuck you _is quite commonly said amongst humans, and he was rather confused on how that was meant to be an insult to anyone if it was meant to be telling of something pleasurable. The human race was somewhat messed up, but they had their good traits too. They'd created religions, cults, had medical breakthroughs, made fire arms and military bases, not to mention their music and other things such as dance, martial arts. There was so much about the human race that was good because of their evolution over time, their fashion senses had changed too, whereas his species have always kept it simple with the loincloths and armour.

So much to ask about, but not something you should discuss with others. There had always been a fine line between love and hate with the two species, humans may have been trophies, but there have been times where the Yautja have had to protect them due to some agreement or the fact that one of them is injured by a Bad Blood. The Yautja were respectful creatures, building great and powerful races and clans amongst themselves.

Humans did the same sort of thing, but they normally settled to call them gangs and what not. Men and women alike are forced to die due to their religion, rights and such, and that's what pissed the Yautja off so much. The fact that men were bigger than women, did not mean that they were not a force to be reckoned with, if the female Yautja heard about this, they'd be down here with no questions and just beat the shit out of every male that was in the vicinity. No mercy at all.

Louise was strange, she was confident, yet a scaredy-cat, it didn't take much to scare her, but she would have stood there and taken it without a fight. Maybe she was just submitting, but the humans had evolved, which had women with rights, but they were still not allowed to do certain things it seemed. Women were seen as baby makers, something that is an insult to most of them due to the fact that some can actually fight better than men.

She looked up at her companion and smiled at him, noting the fact that he was looking at her.

He stopped for a moment, and thought about his actions. He was very open-minded, he didn't really follow the crowd, sure he had his honour and all of that, but he'd gladly save a human anytime if he could, especially a human female.

(-)

Louise followed with little to say, her hands grasping and gripping each other, twiddling her thumbs like a child. She was nervous, she'd never actually been in the presence of a Yaujta before, and this one, seemed rather adventurous and curious about her. She hadn't quite figured out if that was a good thing just yet, she hoped it was.

She was startled as a whoosh came down and thudded against the ground; her head whipped to the source and saw Yeyinde approaching thin air. She looked about warily, her head moving back and forth before coming to a stop.

Then she saw it; a giant ship made of ominous looking metal, a ramp extended to the ground to welcome its passenger, and herself.

_Hope you liked to read! _

_I'll see you guys soon!_

_-Fork-Tongued-Nemesis_


End file.
